


Enough

by nihilBliss



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst and Feels, Boys Kissing, Carnival, Crying, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Karkat Needs a Hug, Kissing, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Men Crying, Movie Night, Rain, Strider Feels, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19128844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nihilBliss/pseuds/nihilBliss
Summary: When Karkat's perfect date gets ruined, he and Dave go home to stew and watch a movie. They begin to ponder their relationship and how it's changed them.What does it mean to be enough? To have someone else make you feel like you're enough?Art by Nanaja, who is brilliant. Written for the 2019 New Beginnings Big Bang





	Enough

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/181865483@N05/48019997392/in/dateposted-public/)

The lights of the ferris wheel glowed through the downpour like rainbow fireflies, floating above the warm sea of golden hues illuminating the reds and blues and greens of the tents and awnings below. A crowd tramped over the grass, some holding jackets or shirts or bagged knick-knacks over their heads, some reveling in the warmth of the summer rain.

Beneath the taut red awning of the pretzel vendor’s stall, Karkat glared at the crowd, gnawing on half of a salted pretzel. He could find no quick route to the exit, not after the sudden deluge.

Resigned and exasperated, he sighed.

“Alright, fine, Dave, you can carry me,” he said. “Let's fly home.”

“Sounds good,” Dave answered, offhandedly. “You can finish your pretzel first if you want.” He held a moderately sized stuffed Jadeblood grub under one arm, wrapped in plastic. Its horns were shaped like hearts.

“I don't want to fucking stuff my mouth around all these stupid assholes all night,” Karkat said. “Can we just go?”

A whine crept into those last few syllables. Karkat didn't do well with crowds at the best of times; Dave could read the signs.

“Yeah, alright,” said Dave. “This smell is kinda starting to grate on me. Like, the pretzels are fine, but this nacho cheese stuff really gives me a headache after a while. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to work here. Hop on my shoulders, and let’s blow this popsicle stand. Or whatever the fuck you do to a pretzel stand. Untwist it? Salt it? Dip it in neon orange canned cheese and regret your choices?”

“Oh my gog, Dave, shut up,” Karkat said. He climbed onto Dave’s back, clinging to him like a baby sloth, and they shot off into the rainy night.

The flight didn’t take long, but the storm stretched the whole way. By the time Dave and Karkat landed, they were soaking wet. As soon as he slammed the door behind them, Karkat flung his waterlogged clothes to the tile of the dimly lit foyer and started swearing.

“First fucking time we have a date night outside of the fucking house in two fucking months, and the bullshit weather just decides it’s time to piss all over our parade,” he ranted. “Apparently I’m not fucking allowed to have a romantic night out with my boyfriend if I don’t want to wind up soaked to the nook with stupid fucking sky water. At least on Alternia, the weather would have had the basic decency to try to kill us outright instead of just taunting us by shutting down the fucking ferris wheel before we get the chance to ride it after Dave Fucking Strider decides to succumb to his stupid human male moobeast shit and win me a plush grub we could have easily bought off the internet for three bucks because he wants to be my big strong boyfriend or whatever fuckery he’s decided to resurrect from his dead society.”

Dave looked at the stuffed grub, shoulders sinking but expression impassive behind his shades.

“Didn't know you wanted to ride the ferris wheel that badly,” he said. “Wish you'd said something, dude.”

Dave limply tossed the still-wrapped grub into their coat closet and snapped his fingers. His wet clothes fell to the ground in a pile, and he stood in his warm, dry godtier outfit. Karkat turned, watched Dave, then retrieved the plush grub.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I’m just frustrated by this stupid fucking weather. You didn't do anything wrong.”

Karkat clutched the grub under his arm. Dave sighed.

“Nah, man, I get it,” he said. “It’s disappointing. But like, we got to spend time together. That's cool as fuck.”

Karkat’s mouth curled at the corners, just a little.

“Can you get the wet clothes into the washing machine before they soak the floor while I dry off?” Karkat asked. “We can watch a movie after if you want.”

“Sure,” Dave said, picking up Karkat’s sodden clothing. “Your pick. Still counts as your turn to plan date night.”

Karkat nodded, then disappeared upstairs. He had just the movie in mind. It was a rom-com - no shock there - about two young trolls who develop a flushed relationship in the course of commiserating over the pressures of life in their small hometown and their shared desire to leave in search of something better, hoping to make it in the bigger world on the strength of their love alone, overcoming financial difficulties, serious illnesses, lack of social support structures, and other obstacles. Karkat wasn’t crazy about Earth C cinema, but the big names on his movie forum were raving about this one, calling it brilliant not just as a romantic comedy, but as a film in general. Their tastes and his tastes didn't always align, but once in a while, they hit on something great.

Warm and cozy in a fresh sweater and pants, Karkat perched on their dingy gray couch and pulled up the film. Dave soon joined with a bowl of popcorn in hand - perfectly popped, as always, perhaps the only way Dave regularly used his time powers anymore - and flopped onto the couch, propping his legs up on Karkat’s lap.

“So, what’s this one called slash about?”

“ _ In Which Two Young Trolls Develop A Flushed Relationship In The Course Of Commiserating Over The Pressures Of Life In Their Small Hometown And Their Shared Desire To Leave In Search Of Something Better Hoping To Make It In The Bigger World On The Strength Of Their Love Alone, Overcoming Financial Difficulties, Serious Illnesses, Lack Of Social Support Structures, And Other Obstacles _ ,” said Karkat.

“Sounds angsty,” said Dave. “But I thought you showed me all of your Alternian movies. Is it an Earth C flick?”

“Yeah,” said Karkat, grabbing a fistful of popcorn. “It was called  _ Nothingtown _ when it came out in human markets. The internet said it was good.”

“ _ Nothingtown _ , huh? Shit, let’s make it take place,” said Dave. Karkat hit the play button, and the screen went dark. Karkat rested his hand on Dave’s ankle, idly running his thumb up and down the line where Dave’s coarse leg hair gave way to smooth skin, a threshold trolls simply didn’t have. It was one of the little details on Dave's body that caught the attention of his hands more than any conscious part of him. He set his other hand on Dave’s thigh, ready for rapid deployment to the popcorn bowl.

Dave wasn’t watching the screen. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; maybe the movie would pull him in, and maybe it wouldn’t. 

For now, he was content to watch his boyfriend’s face. Karkat’s expression softened when he was relaxed- really relaxed. The scowl went smooth. All the lines vanished. Maybe one day they wouldn’t, Dave thought. He’d have lines that didn’t go away by then too. But for now, they were young, and things wiped away easily.

Still, Dave chewed the inside of his cheek. It had indeed been two months since they'd left the house for date night. But Karkat hadn’t said anything about their usual dates, which consisted of takeout, movies, video games, and the occasional bong session. It had seemed okay until, suddenly, it wasn't.

Wasn’t it enough that they were together, away from all the things that made Karkat’s skin crawl and his gut do backflips? Away from the intrusive public and paparazzi and crowds? Besides, they got out of the house from time to time. They still went hunting for shitty liberties with Jade pretty often, after all. And… well, that was it, really. They were homebodies. But that suited Karkat and his borderline agoraphobia, Dave reminded himself. Still, Dave could do more to plan time with friends out of the house. Karkat could, too, of course, but planning stressed him out so much. Dave didn’t mind helping out. Hell, he might as well offer to do the legwork now.

“Hey Kar…” He cut himself off. Karkat was entranced, chewing popcorn and caressing Dave’s ankle. Dave smiled a little smile; this was an improvement. It wouldn’t be right to interrupt.

He turned his attention to the movie. A pair of teenaged trolls, one dark red and one green, were… well, smoking, Dave guessed, but there was something that looked like a stick insect involved. Crazy kids and their vaporizers. Point was, they were huddled together under a thoroughly tagged overpass while rain poured down all around them. The dialog didn’t pop out to Dave, hitting a checklist of angsty, lovey-dovey teenager stuff, nothing special. Maybe it was more poignant for people who didn’t spend half their teens on a meteor flying through the lightless void toward a life-or-death fight for the fate of the universe.

Well, if Karkat was watching instead of bitching, that meant Dave should pay enough attention to talk about it after. Time for a restroom break so he could get into serious moviegoer mode.

“Hey, Karkat, gonna hit the shitter,” Dave said. “Could you pause until I get back?”

Karkat paused the movie, then turned, eyebrow raised.

“You’re actually paying attention to this?”

Dave shrugged.

“I could stare at you being all fucking cute and thinking about all the ways I want to kiss you or touch your horns or brush out your hair for hours. Just hells of fantasize about all the ways I could be affectionate at you. Make you feel like some kind of pampered rich woman’s cat that’s never even been in the same zip code as a problem more serious than its owner buying the wrong brand of cat food. But sometimes it’s nice to mix it up, you feel me?”

Karkat tried to hide his smile.

“Fuck off, Dave,” he said. Dave snorted.

“Love you too,” he said over his shoulder as he left. 

Karkat sat alone, staring at the image on the screen. The still frame showed a young oliveblood troll with shaggy hair and small, tightly curled horns. She was crying, holding her denim jacket tight to keep out the cold and damp. At the bottom of the screen, the subtitles spelled out her last line:

“You make me feel like I’m enough.”

Karkat turned those words over in his mind. Enough? That was an odd way to describe someone. How could a person be enough? Good enough, sure, or strong enough, Karkat could see. But those were specific. They all implied some kind of benchmark - good enough to accomplish some task, or strong enough to endure some hardship or lift some object.

So maybe the better question was “enough for what?” 

Karkat bit his lip. Stick to the context. If there’s an answer, that’s where it will be. The olive girl’s rust matesprit made her feel like she was important enough to have a life outside of whatever stupid little town was ruining their relatively comfortable yet unsatisfying existence. Karkat scoffed. As if a relationship could fix that oliveblood’s blatant lack of self-worth.

Karkat winced. Blood trickled into his mouth from where his tooth pierced his lip.

“Fucking of course,” he swore under his breath. He wiped his hand across his face. A little streak of candy red stained his finger. 

Ugh. He hated that color.

It was worse thinking about how his pump biscuit pushed it through him at all hours of the day. His mutant blood wasn’t a death sentence anymore, but it still made him feel… well, not great. Not that it affected anything. Kanaya and Terezi hadn’t treated him any differently after they found out when they were teenagers, and the humans didn’t have a concept of the hemospectrum.

Well, most of them didn’t. Dave listened when he talked about how things were on Alternia. He at least had an idea of what it meant, so when he said it was stupid that anyone would hurt someone as awesome as Karkat because of the color of his blood, it carried weight.

A lot of the things Dave said carried weight. Karkat didn’t know why, but when Dave said something nice about him, it stuck in a way it didn’t with other people. Well, it wasn’t that, really, so much as that it just made more sense coming from Dave. He said Karkat was funny because he liked Karkat’s long-winded rants and unintentional self-owns. In ways, it echoed Dave’s own unceasing word-vomit and terrible metaphors.

And when Dave said he was cute, well, that made sense too. Not that Karkat really saw it in the mirror, mind, but he smiled more around Dave. Or maybe he just didn’t scowl so much. Didn’t make that pinched expression he did when he felt anxiety creeping up his posture pole. When Karkat relaxed the way he could around Dave, cute was at least within the realm of possibility. A lot of the nice things Dave said just lined up. He made Karkat feel like he was the kind of person that people might want to be around, just for who he was.

Oh.

Dave made Karkat feel like he was enough.

So that’s what the oliveblood girl meant. 

Karkat felt himself shaking. He pulled his knees to his chest. That’s what it meant, to feel like he was enough. To feel like he deserved to be wanted, not because he did impressive things or had a particularly welcoming personality. Not because of who he could be. Not because of the heroic things his ancestor did. Not even for things he’d actually done. Because he was him. Because he was Karkat Vantas. And because that was enough.

Karkat sniffled. His eyes grew damp, and he hugged his legs tighter to him.

“Babe?”

Dave stood in the hall, concern unmistakeable on his face. Karkat turned to look at him, and the tears started to flow. Dave rushed over, sliding across the couch and pulling Karkat into a tender hug.

“Hey, hey, what’s up, Karkitty?” Dave said. “Are you okay?”

Karkat threw his arms around Dave and buried his face in Dave’s chest.

“I love you so much,” he said. “I love you so, so, so much.”

Dave ran his fingers through Karkat’s hair and held him close.

“I love you too, Karkat,” he said. “You're the fucking best. But I go to take a shit and you're crying when I come back, so like, a guy's got to ask what’s up.”

Then Dave's nerves jumped up, and he backpedaled.

“It's cool if you don't want to talk about, uh, whatever is up, though. No pressure and stuff. We can just sit here and cuddle. You're hells of welcome to use my shirt for whatever you gotta get out. It's not gonna stain or anything. Just go ahead and blow your nose and cry and shit. Be as gross as you gotta be.”

Karkat pulled Dave into a kiss that was only about half interruption by intention. They stayed there for a minute, then Karkat pulled away, tears flowing freely.

“You fucker,” he said, wiping his eyes. “It’s… I was just thinking about you and this dumb, pretentious line from the movie.”

He pointed at the screen, and Dave turned to look.

“‘You make me feel like I’m enough?’ What’s that mean?”

Karkat sniffled and set his head on Dave’s chest, pulling himself into Dave’s lap.

“I have… It’s hard for me to feel like I deserve it when people say nice things about me,” he said. “You make me feel like I don’t have to be anything but me to deserve hearing things like that.”

Dave kissed Karkat’s head.

“Well yeah,” he said. “I mean, you’re the actual fucking best, babe. Thought we’d established that.” 

“I’m being serious, Dave,” Karkat said. He clutched Dave’s shirt in his hands. “Back on Alternia, I was only worth anything if I was a threshecutioner. In SGrub, I was only good as a leader. I was only worth anything if I became something I wasn’t already. But with you…”

Karkat choked back a sob.

“With you, I’m already everything I need to be to be worth something. With you, I’m enough,” he said. Dave held Karkat’s petite frame tight against him and felt himself tearing up.

“I’m never gonna let anyone make you feel like you aren’t enough again,” Dave said. “Nobody is allowed to make my man feel like he’s less than the most fucking excellent dude ever. I’ll straight-up sword fight anyone who tries. Gonna go all old-world on them and show this planet what the fuck an honor duel is. Blades at dawn and shit. Nobody stands a goddamn chance when they’ve insulted Karkalicious.”

Karkat snorted into Dave’s chest.

“That is the worst thing you have ever called me,” Karkat said, laughing.

“What, Karkalicious?” Dave said. “Nah, babe, it’s awesome. There was this old Fergie song, Fergalicious. You’re awesome, but you’re not awesome like Fergie, because you’re awesome like Karkat, so you’re Karkalicious.”

“That word is terrible, and I want you to kiss me so you stop saying it,” Karkat said. Dave complied with no further complaint.

Karkat loved how tender Dave could get when they were together. When they’d started dating, Dave had taken to keeping chapstick in his pocket, explicitly so he could keep his lips soft enough to kiss Karkat right - his words. And that wasn't the end of it. Every caress, every gesture, even his voice, bore a gentleness. Not a lot of people saw soft Dave. Then again, not a lot of people saw soft Karkat.

Once Karkat had sufficiently melted into Dave’s embrace and found what composure he had, he broke the kiss and stared into Dave’s dark glasses, that shy smile a little less shy than usual.

“I guess I must be pretty good at something, huh?” He flushed as red as Dave had ever seen him.

“Whoa, stop the presses, did you just compliment yourself? Fuck whatever else is going on in the world, this shit is the most important thing that could happen,” Dave said, deadpan, kissing Karkat’s horn.

“Shut up,” Karkat said, still smiling. “It’s not like you’re any better at taking a compliment.”

Dave put his hand to his chest, taken aback.

“My fucking god,” he said. “Are you suggesting for a second that shoveling my way out of heaps of praise every day hasn’t made me kind of fucking good at that? So many people call me awesome that I’m pretty sure it’s my middle name, dude.”

“Your middle name is Elizabeth, nookbird,” said Karkat. “And you know what? I call shenanigans. You can’t take a compliment without spewing a cloud of ironic bullshit, and you know it.”

Dave tilted his sunglasses down, cocky.

“You wanna test that?”

“Yeah,” said Karkat. “Yeah, I do. Take off your sunglasses and look me in the eye.”

Dave hesitated for maybe half a second before shrugging. He pulled his sunglasses off and set them on the table at one end of the couch. Then, he opened his ruby-red eyes and stared at Karkat.

“Bring it on,” he said.

Karkat did not bring it on. His breath caught for a second. For as often as he saw Dave's eyes, it was easy to forget just how deep they were, rich and endless.

“Your eyes are so fucking beautiful,” Karkat said. His words came out almost as a whisper. There was an awe to his voice, more naked than Dave could remember having ever seen him. Pinned between Karkat and the couch, Dave was a butterfly on a display board, bared for all to see.

“Well I mean, I guess, if you like red that much,” said Dave, “which, I guess you do, I think. I mean, I know you don’t always, but, like, you like this red, which is cool, so that's cool. I think that's all there is to say about that.”

“Is it,” said Karkat, flat. His expression sank into irritation.

“I mean, I could go on if you want. It's hells of rad you like my eyes, and...” Dave started.

“Just say thank you,” Karkat interrupted. “Look me in the eyes and say thank you.”

Dave stopped, looked around the room like he always did when cornered, grateful his glasses hid the way his gaze flit about as it so often oh shit he took the glasses off and now he can't reach them and he looks like a panicky jackass. Cool.

Welp, do or die time. It wasn't like he hadn't had long, eye-to-eye gazes with Karkat in the years they'd been together. This was known territory. So why was he shaking?

“Thank you, babe,” he said, eyes meeting Karkat's. His cheeks flashed hot. A rawness climbed the back of his throat, demanding he say something flippant, but he didn't. He stayed in that space, where Karkat's vivid grey-on-yellow eyes were so big he felt like if he slipped into them he'd fall forever. Slowly, he forced a smile. Karkat returned it, boyish and a little bashful.

“Alright, now I said something nice about myself,” Karkat said, “so you should do the same. Okay?”

“Uhh,” Dave mumbled. “Well that’s kind of self-evident, right? I mean, I’m fucking awesome. Knight of time, producer of sick beats, avant-garde artist extraordinaire, and I have the best boyfriend anyone could ask for. I’m happy to let my towering accomplishments speak for themselves. Keep that shit self-evident. If you gotta say you’re the boss, you aren’t really the boss, right? No need to talk myself up when I got fans and subjects and shit to do it for me. It’d be redundant. 

“Besides, folks have said all there is to say about me. Whatever I’d come up with would be derivative. And if it was derivative, I’d have to be ironic about it, which would defeat the whole point of what you’re doing here. So there’s nothing I can actually say to do what you’re trying to get me to do right now, which is compliment myself, because anything I’d say would have to be wrapped in irony in order to stand out from all the stuff everyone’s said about me and how I’m a hero or whatever all my life, so I’m sorry Karkat, I guess I can’t really give you what you want right now, because a sincere compliment just ain't coming, babe.”

Dave had long since stopped looking at Karkat as he rambled, shooting his gaze around the room as he sought the next word to chain together. When he turned his gaze to his boyfriend, he expected to see that particular expression of disbelief and annoyance Karkat usually saved for when he’d failed to warn of a particularly sour fart. 

That wasn’t what he got. Karkat looked hurt, pitying.

“Dave,” he said, setting a hand on Dave’s cheek, “say that your eyes are nice, okay?”

Dave felt his throat go dry. This was easy - stupidly easy. Why was this anything but easy?

“I guess if you say they are,” he managed. “Like, I keep ‘em behind glasses so I can save them for someone special, like you, because they’re super unique and weird. Humans don’t usually have red eyes. I’ve never even heard of another person with red eyes. Like I guess there are albino people who have kind of pinkish eyes, but they don’t have any pigment in their body at all, and their hair and skin is super super white, so you know I’m not albino. And like I said, their eyes are pink, not red. So I’m one of a kind in the eye color department. Nobody else like me out there. There’s only one Dave Strider. If I have to be a hero and all this other stuff I have to be then I guess I have to stand out like that, too. Being Dave means I have to be the coolest motherfucker out there. We won the game, but I still have to be Dave. I mean, I’m a god, after all. I’m one of the biggest heroes there is. I can’t not live up to that. All the other stuff has to come after, right?”

Dave felt his lower lip quivering. Each word was harder and harder to push out. Why was this hard? Karkat placed a soft, oh-so-soft kiss on his cheek.

“Do you like your eyes, Dave?” he asked.

Dave swallowed.

“I love that you think my eyes are beautiful,” he said. The waterworks were starting. Somewhere in his head, he’d turned a wheel, and long-dry pipes now filled to serve their neglected purpose. “That makes me feel… I mean I don't want to be desperate for validation or to sound like you have to say so for me to feel attractive or good enough or whatever, but like the ironic detached cool thing only goes so deep, and after that, I need something real at the foundation of it all. That's you, and you feel so real, and you make me feel real, and you make the parts of me that aren't objectively awesome feel like they could be a totally okay person on their own like it's…”

“Like you're enough,” Karkat interrupted. The room was silent.

“Yeah,” Dave half-whispered. His breathing grew unsteady.

“Like you, this you, as you are, right here, right now, are enough,” Karkat said, setting his hand on Dave’s cheek. Dave buried his face in Karkat’s shoulder, quivering.

“Yeah,” he managed, voice pitching high. He sniffled, and Karkat kissed his head once, twice, again, again, soft as angel feathers. He lay down across the couch and guided Dave onto his chest, fingers running through Dave’s soft hair. Dave clutched Karkat’s sweater and cried, silently.

Dave never made noise when he cried. He didn’t on the meteor, not even in his sleep, when the nightmares had him grinding his teeth, when he’d cling to Karkat like his life depended on it. He didn’t at Rose and Kanaya’s wedding, and if you didn’t look too close, you couldn’t even tell he was crying. And he didn’t now, when there was nobody around to judge him. There were reasons, and when Karkat spent too much time thinking about them, he grew sick with anger, as if there were something he could do to make parts of Dave's past un-happen. To make Bro un-happen.

But there was something he could do here and now, he reminded himself. He was doing it. Being there, holding Dave close, loving him and caring for him and letting him care in turn, that was enough. Karkat ran his fingers across Dave’s scalp again and again and again and again, steady as a metronome. 

Eventually, Dave looked up from Karkat’s sweater, eyes puffy and streaked with tears but smiling.

“I have no fucking idea who I blew to have you in my life, but I am the luckiest guy in the world,” he said. He crawled up the couch enough to plant a kiss on Karkat’s lips. They sank into it like a daydream.

Dave broke it off first, laughing quietly.

“What?” Karkat asked, a little distant. “What’s so funny?”

“We never finished your movie,” Dave said. He snorted.

“Well get a blanket before I lose what little patience I have left and start it without you,” Karkat said, smiling.

Dave nodded, extracting one from his sylladex and draping it over them. He rested his head on Karkat's chest, the most comfortable pillow he'd ever known, and found skin and hair to occupy his hands. Karkat's arm around him felt safer than he could remember much of anything having felt.

“Do you want me to plan more stuff with our friends?” Dave asked. “It'd get us out of the house more often.”

“That would be fun, yeah,” Karkat said. “Can we talk about it tomorrow? It's still date night.”

Dave kissed the hand that rested on his cheek.

“Sure, babe,” he said.

Then Karkat hit play, and everything else drifted into irrelevance. There was time enough for friends and plans and the outside world ahead. For now, the warmth they shared in the glow of the screen was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is, in a sense, my pondering the relationship between Dave and Karkat presented in the epilogues. I hit a lot of the same beats, but in my own way and with a very different context. Karkat's very much doing the "I believe in the you who believes in me" thing.


End file.
